TESTED NEW ELECTRONICS

when strolling the dimly lit, winding streets of some unfamiliar port, trying to find the dinghy dock after dinner.

The watch also has an anchor alarm with a programmable drift radius—a terrific backup feature. When I tested it, the watch signaled when we were leaving the safe zone I had set by chirping softly and vibrating on my wrist. I thought to myself that it should probably have a louder alarm, but after I thought about it, I realized the vibration would wake me, and the sound-and-vibration combo on a unit strapped to your arm is akin to a horn accompanied by flashing red lights on a helm display or even a smartphone. Score one for the wearable: Not everyone has to be awakened. Oh, and if you happen to leave the watch on your nightstand, the vibration is urgent enough to get your attention. Trust me. I would be curious to test it from the amidships master stateroom deep inside a steelhulled superyacht. You know, for science.

The smartwatch has a sailing race timer for those who enjoy regattas, and a fish counter for anglers who are so successful they lose count of the number of fish they catch, and it even notes where and when you caught them. One problem I had with these features, particularly the fish counter, was that I couldn’t figure out how to turn them off. For controls, the Quatix has five buttons arrayed around the case, and it’s fairly intuitive. But interestingly for touchscreen-happy Garmin, where user-interface is king, there are some blips. As on the